November 25, 2009

Way to Ruin Everything, Roxy!

Just to be clear based on the last few days, Roxy is responsible for the following:

-The murder of Jared.

R.I.P. (sniff!)

-The stalking of Jessica.

-The ruination of Brody's relationship with his one remaining family member.

-Rex's... disappointment? Confusion? Indignation? What would we call this?

-Most importantly:

Again, all of this is Roxy's fault. In case you missed that. Why? Because she knew Mitch wasn't dead a while back, knew he was in a coma, thought she'd killed him by pulling the plug (and because his death was reported to her by the clinic), and didn't then magically know that he wasn't really dead again and run around to tell everyone. Oh, plus she had the nerve to possibly get raped by Mitch Laurence 28 years ago. But you know what? We don't actually know the details. We have no idea what happened between Roxy and Mitch all those years ago, we have no idea how she knew he was alive back in that clinic and why she was apparently the primary contact person listed in his medical files. We have yet to learn why she didn't turn comatose Mitch in to the police. This is because no one's bothering to ask her any real questions. Every time she starts to answer, she gets interrupted with accusations of this being all her fault. Girlfriend needs a hug. Where's Kyle?

Natalie is grieving right now, so I understand that she needs people to blame and will probably misplace her anger a few times before focusing it back on the appropriate party. Roxy was an awful mother when Nat was growing up because she just plain did not care about her -- it's reasonable to me that Natalie would go there in her mind first. She is still getting to know this other version of Roxy -- deeply flawed, constantly making terrible and desperate decisions, but with her heart finally in a decent place. Rex, on the other hand, is just a douchebag of the highest order and he can suck it.

Why can't this all be Stacy's fault? That works for me. She knew Mitch was alive, too. And she, as Schuyler aptly pointed out on Monday, is a "crazy bitch." (Can't say why Schuyler didn't go for an even harsher term when Stacy was essentially bragging to him that she date-raped him. But whatevs! That's a whole other story.)

In other "I cannot follow this story" news, we've learned that Tea swiped her daughter from said daughter's legal father because said daughter's legal father had a bad temper. A bad temper which apparently never resulted in him laying a hand on his wife or child, but Tea was sure that one day it would happen, so she somehow gets to take his kid and run. I couldn't quite follow the "logic," but that's the best I came up with, I could've missed some dots that were connected. Kayak-destroying, potentially-abusive-but-not-abusive Ross has met the underside of Llanview's favorite bus, which has now made it all the way to Seattle. They're clearly now showing us that Tea was right, and he is indeed dangerous and abusive (and the Seattle cops seem to be on board with that, so the deal is pretty much sealed), but you can't actually take a kid away from its father because you're sure that he might get abusive sometime in the future. Especially in a fictional world where Todd Manning has been awarded full custody of his other children on multiple occasions. And I still can't follow the part of the story where Tea didn't think till recently that the kid might've been Todd's. 98% of this plotting feels completely like afterthought.

I did love that Tea correctly pointed out to Todd that he's a jealous son-of-a-bitch and that when he thought Jack was Max's kid, he sold him on the black market and told Blair he was dead. I realize it was just an evasion attempt and not actually her real motivation, but this is one of those historic details that really needs to be brought up more often. Ideally every time Todd gets smug and self-righteous.

At least we got another fun blood-curdling scream or two from Tea, but it was somewhat less amusing this time. For those who'd like to re-live the amusing time, apparently ABC is re-airing "The Defenestration of Blair Cramer" this Friday in lieu of a new episode.

Also...

What was up with the juxtaposition of this steamy (hello, Brody!) shower scene and Mitch's letter to Jessica?

And finally, I did want to send some love Melissa Archer's way. She really brought it these last couple of weeks, and I've been critical of her playing anguish in the past (she's always been great in "spitfire" mode, but I usually cringed when she was supposed to be crying and devastated). She really broke my heart and has turned in some lovely performances of all her stages of grief.

It's been an exhausting several episodes in One Life Land, but Kyle and Fish always make me feel a little better.

Brody is crazy hot, and the boy can sing too. I think he deserves the "hotly" attributed to all he does on OLTL. He and JT from GH can share that honor.

Todd a great Dad.... NO. ITA about his past being thrown in his face when he gets all self righteous, it would be super if a judge could do that too next time he sues Blair or Tea for sole custody. Kidnappers do not make good parents for starters!

And Rex is indescribably wacky, what the hell went wrong for this character and this actor? And poor Roxy. Have the writers forgotten to give this backstory any consideration? What a mess, a Guz/Pratt style mess.

Kish is LOVE :-) If hideous corpse Nash pops up again or crosses my mind I immediately imagine a Kish kiss and then I feel better.

Love ur OLTL Posts! ITA about the Roxy portion--what the eff!? How is it all her fault when she thought he had died? I mean roxy isnt mother of the year but she really was trying to protect Rex...And what in the hell is this genius PI thinking about going to "meet" Mitch and tell him they share DNA?! Does he not see how he stalks Jess and the fam? HELLOOOOO repurcussions...Rex's brain melted away somewhere along the Stacy story...I think mine did too haha Ugh Still love OLTL and please keep posting about it!

ITA with your summation on Roxy, Brody is HAWT, and Rex is a douche. Oh yes, and Kish is cute.

And I LOVED your commentary on the Tea/Dani/Ross/Todd fiasco. WTH is up with that? Ross raised Dani all her life and now he is suddenly this disposable, angry and evil man. Todd can now claim her because of DNA? Todd never did anything abusive? He's such a good guy. *wink* It doesn't make sense.

And I'm just getting all out pissy toward Tea and her constant sound effects and hemming and hawing - complete with hemming and hawing sound effects which are super irritating. Ugh,, this s/l is driving me bonkers. ^^ haha

Oh yes, what did you think of the Kim/Stacy and Schuy scenes? I half expected Mr. Furley (was that his name) to come busting in the door. Oh wait, Rex could have and made those Don Knotts type faces. But, I'm loving the rapport between Kim and Schuy. Kim in general, I am enjoying out of all of this. She is funny.

I'm a sentimental sap too, Louise. Today's episode was wonderful. All the families and friends gathering together, and then Viki reading the poem...sigh. Loved it. I appreciated the little nod to Phil Carey with Asa's picture on the mantle. That was nice.

As for why the juxtaposition of Brody/Jess in the shower and Mitch reading the letter: Who cares? Naked Brody! Brody naked! That's all I was thinking.

Brody = Wee Pocket Soldier... yeah, he's a cop now but he'll always be the ex-Navy SEAL to me. I loved his stuff with Jessica the other day, he was exactly what she needed, a sounding board to say all the things she was grateful for and feeling guilty about feeling grateful for them and then gently taking care of her.

Mitch did kill Jared and that has totally screwed over Natalie's life for sure but Mitch digging up Jessica's husband's body and putting it on display was also deeply traumatizing. Not to mention his insistence that he's going to be a part of her life.

Gah.

I just hope that Jess backbones up now and can really be there to support her sister in her loss. I, personally, love my Buchanan sorta-twins.

Also... who do I have sleep with to get Blair a storyline that has nothing to do with Todd/Tea? Why are they wasting her? Demolishing Ross and the potential of Ross/Blair is bad enough but why can't they have Blair doing ANYTHING outside of Ron's Hetero-Golden Couple?

V, I adore your take on Schuyler and the stripper twins -- I hope one of those people who has the wherewithal to make YouTube videos would make one for them with "Come And Knock On Our Door" playing underneath! As much as I think it makes no sense that he's going along with it, I look forward to a bunch of hilarious scenes between the trio (well, Stacy can leave a lot).

Dandesun, if you find out who you have to sleep with to get Blair a good storyline (even though they had a glowing one right in front of them!!!), let me know the name and I'm in! It's killing me. And where was she this week? They threw a sentimental holiday bone to Nigel, for heaven's sake, but no throwaway mention of Blair being off visiting Cassie or Kelly or... anything?? Gah, indeed. (Maybe they said something, but if they did I blinked and missed it. Was she upstairs with the boys??)

I, too, love Brody's support of Jessica, and I hope I can have faith that the dynamic won't always just be knight/damsel but that she gets an opportunity to go to bat for him when the time comes.

I know I'm totally in the minority here, but I am failing to feel the Brody love (or see what HAWT factor he is channelling), although I will totally concede that he has got it all over Whisperin' John McBain and his questionable hygiene.

For my money Jared, Todd, and Mitch are wicked HAWT, while Brody is just...tiny.

As for Natalie, she stopped being interesting the day she stopped being the hateful vindictive bitch sister out to claim her place in the house of Buchanan. Melissa Archer has never really sold herself as a viable heroine in my book and her tendency to overact makes her a convincing sibling to Rex.

I'm getting through the Todd/Tea/Dani/Ross mess by ignoring all the 'logic' and 'rationale' and I guess basically the beats of the so-called story. Since there is no way to make sense of it, I'm no longer trying.

The rest of the show is just on fire! That said, I'm not sure how long it will take me to forgive them for killing off Jared, especially if it leads to a repairing of McPain and Natalie. Poor Natalie. There's no one to call her Sparky anymore.